At the presidential debate, Trump and Harris should be asked what they would do about the terrorist attacks by opioid dealers.
Major fentanyl raid in Prescott Valley
Authorities said they found 30,000 fentanyl pills in a vehicle during a traffic stop near the intersection of Florentine and Navajo Road.
Fox – 10 Phoenix
Twenty-three years ago, after September 11, the U.S. government organized a vigorous response to the terrorist attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives.
The Taliban regime that harbored the attackers in Afghanistan was overthrown. Al-Qaeda leaders were systematically hunted down. Airport security was tightened. And then-President George W. Bush called on our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to overcome coordination barriers and work more closely together. This admirable, forceful response has kept us relatively well protected from international terrorism ever since.
Today the country faces another international threat that is claiming as many lives as 9/11. every 10 days. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 107,543 Americans died of drug overdoses last year.
This horrific number includes at least 74,702 deaths from synthetic opioids, including fentanyl – about the same number as Covid-19-related deaths in 2023.
The fentanyl crisis is affecting far too many families, including my
Most fentanyl comes from China and is manufactured in Mexico. From there, it mostly reaches the United States via conventional means of transportation and packaging. The drug overdose epidemic also imposes enormous economic costs on our country. The Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress estimated the total cost at $1.5 trillion in 2020.
This is a deadly plague that has struck far too many American families. My own family is affected as well. Seven years ago, we lost our brave son Jonathan when he relapsed on his recovery from addiction and accidentally overdosed on heroin laced with fentanyl.
I lost my son to fentanyl. Now my family is on the front lines of the opioid epidemic.
There is tentative progress being made on several fronts. The number of deaths attributed to fentanyl, while alarmingly high, is declining only very slowly. Our capable law enforcement and intelligence agencies are working tirelessly to stop this influx of deadly drugs.
In fact, the arrest of two key members of the Mexican cartel in late July was a brilliant example of cooperation between the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.
However, similar to the pre-9/11 nature of the attacks, the agencies responsible for seizing fentanyl and related substances are not working as closely together as they should – and not as closely as they did in the fight against terrorism following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The obstacles to law enforcement and intelligence cooperation are difficult to overcome.
Treat fentanyl dealers more like 9/11 terrorists
Despite strong denials from political leadership, rivalries at the working level remain numerous among government organizations. An agency may fear that sharing information could compromise a valuable source or jeopardize an investigation that supports a prosecution.
Sharing is not a natural process when authorities are geographically separated and people with relevant information are not in the same room. At worst, knowledge can be seen as power or a source of institutional pride.
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To directly address these and other issues, President Joe Biden on July 31 issued a new national security memorandum, based in part on a report from the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, that takes the long-needed and important step of identifying fentanyl-related deaths as a national security threat.
The memorandum directs all departments of our government to do even more to combat this evil and to better share the information needed to do so. It also establishes a Fentanyl Disruption Steering Group, led by the National Security Council, to oversee the effort.
It’s not a glamorous thing, but it’s crucial.
More specifically, the President’s memo establishes fentanyl as a stand-alone intelligence priority. It directs government agencies to work together to improve intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination, develop a shared threat assessment, increase the volume and speed of information sharing, and cooperate more closely on strategic disruption efforts.
The crucial step is to mandate that fentanyl traffickers be treated more like terrorists when prosecuted.
The memo also calls for increased collaboration with private sector companies in a range of areas, including shipping, freight forwarding, e-commerce and social media. Indeed, there is a great need for better technology and far more detection capacity at ports of entry, including border crossings and package processing facilities.
The Transportation Security Administration has made flying safer, even though it creates some inconveniences for passengers. To prevent fentanyl-related deaths, Americans should be willing to accept similar inconveniences when crossing borders and delivering packages.
Certainly, the epidemic of overdose deaths that affects the United States more than other high-income countries is a multidimensional supply and demand problem. There is no silver bullet. A major obstacle is stigma, similar to that experienced during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has dampened our country’s efforts overall.
Only by using all the tools at our disposal and increasing our efforts in prevention, treatment and elimination can we prevent other families from experiencing this tragedy.
The opioid crisis should not be overshadowed in the news by the presidential election campaign; it should be an integral part of the campaign.
At their debate scheduled for Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump should be pressed to detail their plans to combat the crisis – and they should commit to continuing the new measures to address the pre-9/11 situation we are seeing every day.
James “Sandy” Winnefeld, a retired Navy admiral, was the ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is co-chair of SAFE projecta nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the opioid epidemic, and is chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
